From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:
Murdoch Mysteries puzzles American critics
Also, on Ovation, Murdoch Mysteries is called The Artful Detective. The title, which is just silly, came about because Ovation is an arts channel and it wanted an arts signal in the title.
It is, as far as many U.S. TV critics are concerned, a mystery show. Not because Inspector Murdoch solves crimes. But because hardly anyone writes about it – ever. Ovation brought star Yannick Bisson and executive producer Christina Jennings here to the opening session of the TV Critics press tour and, immediately, the show’s status as a puzzler was obvious. Continue reading.
Since mention is made of “the second episode” I assume they were screening the one that featured Mark Twain. This episode featured the connection between Canada and Great Britain so it was Anglocentric in nature and an exception rather than the rule.
Twain is invited to the Empire Club to give a speech. He causes a stir when he delivers an anti-colonial speech. The story then examines Twain’s controversial anti colonial and anti Imperialist leanings. He eventually convinced Brackenried to reject elements of the British Empire.
In doing so the story is the tiniest bit of a parable about Canada and it’s emergence as a sovereign country.
The only way to tell the story was to focus on the tight connection between the two countries.
Most of our episodes don’t do that